Chapter 9 MIS

Supply chain execution systems enable the firm to generate demand forecasts for a product and to develop sourcing and manufacturing plans for that product. T/F

False Supply Chain planning systems do this.

Enterprise systems are built around a small number of predefined business processes. T/F

False Supports nearly all of an organization's internal business activities.

The bullwhip effect can be countered by: globalization. disintermediation. implementing a CRM. Reducing information uncertainty. product differentiation.

Reducing information uncertainty.

Which of the following traditional solutions enables manufacturers to deal with uncertainties in the supply chain? Safety stock Continuous replenishment Just-in-time strategies Demand planning Perfect information

Safety stock acts as a buffer for the lack of flexibility in

You have been asked to implement enterprise software for a manufacturer of kitchen appliances. What is the first step you should take? Rewrite the software to support the way the company's business processes work. Select the business processes you wish to automate. Map the company's business processes to the software's business processes. Map the software's business processes to the company's business processes. Select the functions of the system you wish to use.

Select the functions of the system you wish to use.

Which of the following manages the flow of products through distribution centers and warehouses to ensure that products are delivered to the right locations in the most efficient manner? Supply chain demand system Supply chain delivery system Supply chain planning system Supply chain execution system Supply chain optimization system

Supply chain execution system

Which of the following enables a firm to generate demand forecasts for a product and to develop sourcing and manufacturing plans for that product? Supply chain demand system Supply chain delivery system Supply chain optimization system Supply chain execution system Supply chain planning system

Supply chain planning system helps model an existing supply chain.

Concurrent supply chains are made possible by which technology? ERP systems The Internet Supply-chain management systems Just-in-time supply-chain technologies Extranets

The Internet

A supply chain driven by actual customer orders is called a ________ model. supply-based demand-driven replenishment-driven pull-based market-driven

pull-based model in which the customer tells the manufacturer ahead of time what he/she wants to buy.

You have been hired by Santori, Inc., a small company that imports and distributes an Italian sparkling water. The company is interested in what benefits an enterprise system would bring. Would an enterprise system be appropriate for this company? What steps would you take in determining this? Short Answer

An enterprise system may be too expensive, although there are enterprise software packages that are available to smaller companies. A hosted enterprise application might be the most economical way to implement an enterprise system. To determine whether this would be beneficial to Santori, I would first look at their existing business processes. It would be ideal to determine if their efficiency meets benchmarks in their industry and allows them to be competitive with other businesses in their niche. Then I would review existing hosted applications to see how the application's business processes matched up with Santori's. It would be important to compare the costs of instituting new business processes with the benefits and cost savings

Identify at least four benefits and four challenges of enterprise systems. Short Answer

Benefits: -increase operation efficiency -provides firm wide information to help managers make better decisions -helps a business respond better and faster to a customer requests -helps recognize costs and helps show where they can be cut challenges: -involves complex pieces of software that are hard to learn and train employees to understand software is expensive -every job essentially changes upon first implementation -information is often lost

Enterprise software is built around thousands of predefined business processes that reflect: government regulations. industry benchmarks. best practices. cutting edge workflow analyses. the firm's culture.

Best Practices

Which supply chain planning function determines how much product is needed to satisfy all customer demands? Distribution management Replenishment planning Demand planning Order planning Customer planning

Demand planning

From your reading of the chapter's opening case, which of the answers below is not a reason why Avon chose JDA's Manufacturing and Intelligent Fulfillment software? Build a central planning function to coordinate demand, manufacturing and fulfillment Improve the ability to predict what customers wanted to buy Faster fulfillment of orders on a global scale Reduce inventory Develop New Products

Develop new products

Which of the following provides a suite of integrated software modules for finance and accounting, human resources, manufacturing and production, and sales and marketing that allows data to be used by multiple functions and business processes? Process management software ERP systems Groupware CRM software Supply chain management systems

ERP systems Enterprise Resource planning

Which of the following is not true about enterprise systems? Enterprise systems help firms respond rapidly to customer requests for information or products. Enterprise system data have standardized definitions and formats that are accepted by the entire organization. Enterprise software is expressly built to allow companies to support their existing business practices. Enterprise software includes analytical tools to evaluate overall organizational performance. Enterprise systems provide firm-wide information to help managers make better decisions.

Enterprise software is expressly built to allow companies to support their existing business practices.

Identify and describe three major enterprise applications. (short answer)

Enterprise systems, customer relationship management, and supply chain management. - Enterprise systems are based on a suite of integrated software modules and a common central database. Enterprise systems utilize enterprise software to support financial and accounting, human resources, manufacturing and production, and sales and marketing processes. Enterprise systems provide many benefits including an enterprise-enabled organization, improved management reporting and decision making, a unified information systems technology platform, and more efficient operations and customer-driven business processes. - Supply chain management systems help an organization better manage its supply chain, including planning, sourcing, making, delivering, and returning items. Supply chain management software can be categorized as a supply chain planning system or as a supply chain execution system. A supply chain planning system enables a firm to generate demand forecasts for a product and to develop sourcing and manufacturing plans for that product. A supply chain execution system manages the flow of products through distribution centers and warehouses to ensure that products are delivered to the right locations in the most efficient manner. Supply chain management benefits include improved customer service and responsiveness, cost reduction, and cash utilization. - Customer relationship management systems help firms maximize the benefits of their customer assets. These systems capture and consolidate data from all over the organization and then distribute the results to various systems and customer touch points across the enterprise. Customer relationship management systems can be classified as operational or as analytical.

Extensive customization of enterprise software reduces the overall cost of implementation. T/F

False

Firms in the supply chain develop safety stocks in order to increase the efficiency of their operations. T/F

False

The bullwhip effect leads to declining inventory costs across the entire supply chain. T/F

False

What business processes are supported by enterprise systems? Give specific examples. Short Answer

Finance and accounting: including GL, AP, AR, fixed assets, cash management, and forecasting, product-cost accounting, cost-center accounting, asset accounting, tax accounting, and more. Human Resources: personnel administration, time accounting, payroll, benefits, compensation, workforce planning, and more. Manufacturing and production processes: procurement, inventory management, purchasing, shipping, production planning and more. Sales and Marketing processes: including order processing, quotations, contracts, product configuration, pricing, billing, commissions, and more.

Enterprise systems improve management decision making in all the following ways except: providing up-to-the-minute data on sales, inventory and production. providing more accurate sales and production forecasts. Improving forecasts of consumer behavior. implementing standard definitions and formats worldwide. determining the profitability of products.

Improving forecasts of consumer behavior. It cannot anticipate consumer behavior.

Why isn't overstocking warehouses an effective solution for a problem of low availability? It does not speed product time to market. It is an inefficient use of raw materials. It increases sales costs. It increases inventory costs. It lowers fill rate.

It increases inventory costs.

The difference between push- and pull-based models is summarized by which of the following slogans? Sell what we make, not make what we sell. Push what we make, not pull what we make. Make what we sell, not sell what we make. Pull what we make, not push what we sell. Make what we push, not push what we sell.

Make what we sell, not sell what we make.

Before the pre-Internet environment, supply chain coordination was hampered by the difficulties of making information flow smoothly among different internal supply chain processes. T/F

True

Inefficiencies in a supply chain are primarily caused by inaccurate or untimely information. T/F

True

Organizations can rewrite enterprise system software to support their existing business processes. T/F

True

Supply chain inefficiencies can waste as much as 25 percent of a company's operating costs. T/F

True

Supply chain management systems are a type of enterprise system T/F

True

The downstream portion of the supply chain consists of the organizations and processes for distributing and delivering products to the final customers. T/F

True

Which of the following refers to a company's suppliers, the suppliers' suppliers, and the processes for managing relationships with them? Supplier's internal supply chain Logistics supply chain Downstream portion of the supply chain Upstream portion of the supply chain On Contract supplier's chain

Upstream portion of the supply chain Upstream portion of the supply chain includes a company's suppliers, the suppliers' suppliers, and the processes for managing relationships with them. Suppliers that deal directly with a manufacturer and their suppliers. Downstream: Distributors and those that deliver products to customers. Internal: The employees that transform materials, components, and services into the actual products.

A distortion of information about the demand for a product as it passes from one entity to the next across the supply chain is called the ________ effect. network bullwhip ripple whirlpool diffraction

bullwhip

Which of the following enables a company to tailor a particular aspect of enterprise software to the way a company does business? Configuration tables Web services Data dictionaries Middleware Groupware

configuration tables

To achieve the maximum benefit of a new ERP system, Tasty Baking implemented an enterprise system by: using only the pre-defined processes in the ERP software that matched its own processes. retaining its legacy systems to operate as a backup to the new enterprise system. customizing less than 5 percent of the enterprise system processes. changing the ERP software as needed to match their own processes. using a cloud-based version of the ERP.

customizing less than 5 percent of the enterprise system processes.

The total time it takes to complete a business process, from start to finish, is called its ________ time. development cycle fulfillment service actualization

cycle

Walmart's continuous replenishment system is an example of a(n) ________ model. push-based pull-based enterprise-based supply chain optimization forecast-based

pull-based

Distribution and delivery of products to retailers is part of the: downstream portion of the supply chain. external supply chain. upstream portion of the supply chain. supplier's internal supply chain. midstream portion of the supply chain.

downstream portion of the supply chain. Downstream: Distributors and those that deliver products to customers. Upstream portion of the supply chain includes a company's suppliers, the suppliers' suppliers, and the processes for managing relationships with them. Suppliers that deal directly with a manufacturer and their suppliers. Internal: The employees that transform materials, components, and services into the actual products.

A company having difficulty with timely delivery of parts to its manufacturing plants should implement a supply chain ________ system. execution planning optimization management touch point

execution Supply chain execution systems manage the flow of products through distribution centers and warehouses to ensure that products are delivered to the right locations in the most efficient manner.

Supply chain execution systems provide all of the following functions except: generating demand forecasts for products. tracking the flow of finished goods. managing materials. managing warehouse operations. managing the financial information involving all parties.

generating demand forecasts for products. supply chain planning systems perform this function.

The business value of an effective supply chain management system includes all of the following except: faster time to market. cost reduction. supply matched to demand. improved delivery service. increased inventory levels.

increased inventory levels.

Uncertainties in the supply chain often lead to: declines in production. increases in inventory across all tiers. strategic changes in production plans. the bull whip effect. a reduction in safety stocks.

increases in inventory across all tiers.

In the supply chain, components or parts are referred to as: upstream materials, organizations, and processes. raw materials. secondary products. intermediate products. downstream organizations and processes.

intermediate products goods that are used for resale or further production in the same year.

A scheduling system for minimizing inventory by having components arrive exactly at the moment they are needed and finished goods shipped as soon as they leave the assembly line best describes a ________ strategy. just-in-time frictionless bullwhip safety-stock streamlined

just-in-time

From your reading of the Soma Bay case study, the company implemented JD Edwards Enterprise One to solve all of the following problems except: overtaxing of its data centers. providing timely reports of profitability. providing detailed financial data. combining data from general ledger and other financial systems. using JD Edwards' other integrated modules.

overtaxing of its data centers.

Supply chain software can be classified as either supply chain ________ systems or supply chain ________ systems. push; pull demand; continual upstream; downstream planning; execution maintenance; development

planning; execution

A supply chain driven by forecasts of consumer demand follows a(n) ________ model. pull-based build-to-stock push-based replenishment-driven optimized

push-based Traditionally, customers purchase whatever products are available. Although colors, sizes, and prices may vary somewhat, generally a manufacturer decides what to produce by forecasting what the potential demand might be through a push-based model. pull-based model in which the customer tells the manufacturer ahead of time what he/she wants to buy.

As they move through the supply chain, ________ are transformed into finished products and shipped to retailers and customers. raw materials intermediate products basic products natural resources nascent products

raw materials intermediate products become a part of the final product. Raw materials are materials transformed to make a product.

Coca-Cola implemented enterprise software from Oracle that enabled it to achieve all of the following except: standardizing business processes worldwide. improving its bargaining power with suppliers. reacting faster to market changes. reducing the number of employees. reducing the cost of raw materials.

reducing the number of employees.

A network of organizations and business processes for procuring raw materials, transforming these materials into intermediate and finished products, and distributing the finished products to customers is called a(n): distribution channel. supply chain. value chain. marketing channel. information system.

supply chain.

Supply chain planning systems perform all of the following functions except: establish inventory levels for raw materials and finished goods. identify the transportation mode to use for product delivery. determine where to store finished goods. determine how much product to manufacture in a given time period. track the physical status of goods.

track the physical status of goods. Supply chain execution systems perform this function